Unit 6 Managing a Successful Business Project Assignment Solution
Introduction
This is a report from AZZ Constructions, who are aiming to extend their job area to accommodate additional workers since their high-quality services have created a great demand among consumers, resulting in a surge in business that is difficult to manage with limited resources. As a result, a project has been assigned that must begin in October and finish in December. This paper contains a brief summary of the project management process as well as the many tools and mechanisms used to construct a project estimate.
Task 1
1.1 Describe the Background and Principles of Project Management
The use of skills, processes, method information & knowledge, and experiences to meet the project’s objectives is known as project management. Since the 1950s, the organization has been methodically using project management tools and processes. In general, the scope of a project is determined by three factors: time, money, and quality. In the situation presented, AZZ Construction want to extend its company area in order to accommodate additional project workers for prospective projects (Kerzner, 2011 ). As a result, they have been asked to begin the project between October 10th and December 12th, 2016. AZZ constructions follow six essential criteria to ensure that the project is completed successfully.
The vision and objective of a project should be crystal apparent to everyone involved in order for them to have a better knowledge of the job at hand. It aids in the clarification of the intended goal or condition and the steps required to achieve it.
Business objectives- After establishing the project’s vision and purpose, it’s crucial to establish the project’s business objectives or goals.
The members who will participate in the projects, the name of the project leader, the frequency of meetings, the agenda to be addressed, the meeting minutes, and so on are all clearly stated in the standards of participation (Storbacka, 2011. P.700).
Intervention and execution strategy- This is the most important part of the project, and it entails doing a gap analysis to determine the optimal intervention procedure for resolving the issue at work. There are several quality management strategies that may be employed, such as root cause analysis, asking why five times, and so on. After you’ve settled on an intervention tactic, you’ll need to figure out how you’re going to carry it out.
Organizational Ailment- All project team members should be present for proper organizational ailment so that small team hurdles can be conducted in which everyone will be provided with a training or emails or e-learning modules that should contain the WIFM (what’s in it for me) to engage the stakeholder’s interest and get the best out of them.
Task 3:
3.1 Prepare Project Plans and establish the Project Organisation
According to the chart, the project coordinator is the project’s leader who has entire power and is responsible for the project’s success. Following the project manager, the duty is divided between the two project implementation leaders, each of whom employs a distinct strategy to ensure the project’s success. They also split the work between the project team, the research team, and the finance administrative personnel. The task is divided among the financial issue professionals, monitoring specialists, and promotion specialists by the project team. The task is divided among the research workers and technical staff by the research team. The supply and public orders specialist, human resource accounting specialist, and auxiliary staffs are assigned to the task by the financial administration staffs (Dunne and Dunne, 2011).
The project runs well since the team is aware of their duties and responsibilities and ensures that the task is completed within the stated date. It is an effective human resource planning strategy since different departments can provide the precise number of workers needed to complete the task in the future. They also include detailed descriptions of the competencies that are expected of employees for the desired role. Strategic planning may help to outline accurate human resource estimations as well as the project budget.
3.2 Apply Project Scheduling, Estimating and Cost Control techniques
To implement project scheduling activities, AZZ must take the following steps:
Define the schedule activities – Work packages should be broken into additional schedule activities according to the work breakdown structure. Each work package should think about the actions that will be necessary to build the packages (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).
Organize the activities- The activities should be organized in a systematic and orderly way based on when they occur.
Estimating the resources necessary for the activities- This stage necessitates the estimation of the project’s resources. Estimating the length of time that each activity will take.
Estimating the length of each activity- This approach requires a couple of phases, which are as follows:
Expert opinion
Comparable estimating
Estimation based on parameters
As a result, here are a few useful tools that, when used properly, may yield fantastic outcomes.
The order of operations, the resources required, and the duration of the activities are all utilized to optimize the project’s overall schedule.
Monitoring and controlling the schedule- This is the final stage in ensuring that the schedule is appropriately monitored and managed throughout the project’s life cycle (Bredin and Söderlund, 2011). This guarantees that the work is of high quality and that the tools, resources, and procedures are used correctly.
AZZ must estimate the project in four stages, including:
Project start-up—in this stage, comparable estimations are made based on previous project estimates in order to scale up the project estimates.
Early in the planning process, similar estimations and three-point estimates must be presented. The corporation must employ public estimation data and parametric estimating approaches in this case.
The final project plan incorporates the team members’ bottom-up estimates of the deliverables (Kerzner, 2013. ).
Weekly status- Estimates are pushed out on a weekly basis in this project till it is done.
AZZ should begin by following a good framework of cost control measures.
Estimates and project budgets- this is the foundation of the project, and it is essential to generate accurate estimates and a solid project budget in order to complete the task successfully (Merrow, 2011).
Earned value management, also known as earned value analysis, is a quantitative approach through which a corporation may assess the project’s real success. It aids in the tracking of the project’s timetables and costs (Kerzner, 2011.).
Forecasting- The organization may estimate future project performance based on the calculations done through earned value management.
If the project is delayed or over budgeted due to external or internal issues, this approach may be used to assess the project performance that is necessary to finish the project within the predicted budget.
Variance analysis is a technique for comparing projected project performance to actual cost performance.
3.3 Analyse the methods used to measure project performance
It has been noticed that AZZ Constructions uses six effective methodologies for monitoring project success.
Completed units- This approach is used to track tasks that are repeated and where each step can be readily tracked. When a work is repeated, it usually takes the same amount of time, resources, and effort, which makes it easier to keep track of the units.
Incremental milestones, commonly known as the steps approach, are a type of incremental milestone. It is usually associated with expense accounts, which are made up of many subtasks that must be done in a specific order.
Start to finish- It simply evaluates the project’s beginning and conclusion points, with nothing in between. It works well for jobs that are completed in a short amount of time. They frequently employ the 50-50 rule, in which both sides are marked equally, although alternative strategies such as 20/80 or 0/100 are also used (Wysocki, 2011. ).
The cost ratio is used to assess the performance of tasks that are intended to last a long time or the entire project. This cost is frequently applied to overhead expenses.
Unlike the technique, which relies on the project manager’s expertise and subjectivity rather than following a predetermined data path. This process is utilized for dewatering and frost removal, among other things (Saunders, 2011).
3.4 Explain Project Change Control Procedures, evaluate the completed project
Project change control is the process of examining all requests for modifications, approving them, and documenting and maintaining the changes to the deliverables and project plan. It starts from the beginning and continues throughout the project since every project requires certain alterations at some point during its life cycle (Larson and Gray, 2011.). These adjustments are useful to both external users and internal difficulties. The four basic motivations for change are as follows:
Environmental changes are those that occur as a result of changes in government policy, law, or corporate strategy.
Organizational- In this case, high-level choices are altered due to a change in the project’s fundamental terms of reference.
Technical- Due to technological advancements, it may be discovered that it provides more positive or resourceful inputs than the initial plans. In some cases, it is possible that the project has been altered as a result of technological issues.
Conclusion
AZZ is a construction company whose project analysis is shown here using various calculating methods such as the net present value (NPV) method, payback method, and so on. The project’s whole procedure, as well as the project team members’ roles and duties, were explained here. It also goes through the factors that are crucial to successfully planning and executing the project.
Reference list:
Books:
Meredith, J.R. and Mantel Jr, S.J., 2011. Project management: a managerial approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Larson, E.W. and Gray, C.F., 2011. Project management: The managerial process.
Wysocki, R.K., 2011. Effective project management: traditional, agile, extreme. John Wiley & Sons.
Anupindi, R., Chopra, S., Deshmukh, S.D., Van Mieghem, J.A. and Zemel, E., 2011. Managing business process flows
Kerzner, H.R., 2011. Using the project management maturity model: strategic planning for project management.John Wiley & Sons.
Merrow, E.W., 2011. Industrial megaprojects: concepts, strategies, and practices for success. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H.R., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Bredin, K. and Söderlund, J., 2011. Human resource management in project-based organizations: the HR quadriad framework
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2011. Management information systems(Vol. 8). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Dunne, K.J. and Dunne, E.S. eds., 2011. Translation and localization project management: the art of the possible. John Benjamins Publishing.
Jackson, S., Schuler, R. and Werner, S., 2011. Managing human resources.Cengage Learning.
Reiser, R.A. and Dempsey, J.V., 2011. Trends and issues in instructional design and technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ
